Communication Strategy

Once your session and action have been organised, time to promote it and spread your impact. Here are a few methods you can use to promote your CE event.

DESCRIPTION

For your circular economy activities to be successful you may need to get members of your community involved and engaged with what you are doing. Here are some of the ideas and activities we have used in order to create a buzz and get people talking along with some tips for how to implement them yourself.

Look out for awareness weeks or events at a local, national or international level. We suggest European Week for Waste Reduction. Use the resources already available as a way to engage your local community. For example in Pontypridd CEYOU challenged local organisations to put themselves on the EWWR map by promoting a small event. The result was three community competitions and the launch of a new Zero Waste blog.

Pick an existing event to join in with. You can use the materials provided by the event organiser and won’t have to start from scratch raising awareness. - Encourage some local groups, organisations, schools and businesses to get involved. - Think up some activities to appeal to different age ranges. See if local businesses will donate a small (eco friendly) prize such as an item for a hamper. - Think about how you will collect the competition entries and who will choose the winner. Will you have a judge or pick names from a hat? Choose an end date and let people know how the competition works. - Share the competition details as widely as you can. - Don’t be discouraged if there are only a few entrants, you are still raising awareness and creating a buzz for future events and that can only be positive. - Pick one or two ideas to concentrate on and do them well. Remember to share information about your plans and activities as well as your competition. You can set up a free blog at Wordpress.com https:// zerowastecynon.wordpress.com/european-week-for-waste-reduction/

Tried and tested examples;

Youth Forum participants and local young people were challenged to create a zero waste awareness poster. Local charity Little Lounge

TIME NEEDED MATERIAL NEEDED

Between 3 and 8 hours depending on what you decide to do. • Blog or social media account. • Small items or idea for prizes such as seeds or soap.

INSTRUCTIONS

EXAMPLES

donated a self-care eco-hamper for the winner and a local member of the UK parliament picked the winner. The competition was circulated on social media and emailed to local schools. The schools set the work as homework. https://zerowastecynon.wordpress.com/2020/12/03/ zero-waste-poster-entries/

We asked local people to send us their zero waste hacks. The ideas were published on a blog site we also set up to help spread the word about some circular economy activities. We put the entries into a hat and picked out one at random. The winner received a small hamper of eco friendly products donated by local eco businesses. https://zerowastecynon.wordpress.com/yourzero-waste-hacks/

DESCRIPTION

Members of Pontypridd Youth Forum met online for a workshop with CEYOU to collect ideas for circular economy projects which could be carried out during lockdown. The result was the infographic - Staying green in Quarantine The graphic shares easy to action hints and tips for environmentally sound and circular economy activities.

INSTRUCTIONS

Hold a face to face or Zoom session with young people, we also had parents present. Introduce the idea of creating a top ten list to encourage people to stay environmentally friendly, or ways to reduce waste or any other topic you think of. Brainstorm a list of ideas to include Choose the best ideas. Work with a smaller group to add the ideas to a graphic. You could use an infographic template on the Canva graphics tool. Publish your graphic and encourage your networks to share it widely.

EXAMPLES

Here you can find the graphic created by Pontypridd Youth Forum http://ceyou.eu/2020/04/06/pontys-young-online-activists/

DESCRIPTION

This activity allows you to disseminate Circular Economy through interviews on experiences. Its two main objectives were to raise an awareness campaign on active experience and to implement circular economy services at local level.

TIME NEEDED MATERIAL NEEDED

A month • Human resources, digital platform and internet connexion • Template for questions

INSTRUCTIONS

Chose the topic for the talk (Exemple: First talk - design and reuse as key instruments of circular market; Second talk - fashion and handmade cloths for a value regeneration)

- Chose the guests for the talk and contact them - Chose the digital platform to use (Streamyard) - Involve youth to decide on questions for the talk - Test the streaming

- The moderator introduces and talks during the streaming and coordinates the participants. - The moderator could also manage the platform or leave this role to an external person - Anticipate the questions to the guests - If possible, interact through questions from the chat or facebook

- Increase in followers on the facebook page - Dissemination of the CEYOU project - Networking between the different organisations - Enthusiasm from the young people involved in the activity

EXAMPLES

https://www.facebook.com/896684417156589/videos/ 406830257131663/? __so__=channel_tab&__rv__=all_videos_card https://www.facebook.com/UCSA.eu/videos/759300284929114/? __so__=channel_tab&__rv__=all_videos_card https://www.facebook.com/events/439598967054273/